Podmoskovye
Pascal Anders does some things different than most other photographers that think about publishing. By now he has produced quite some books and i had thought for some time to present one of them as book of the week. So here are some answers by Pascal Anders about his work in general and last year's „Podmoskovye“, a book that contains a selection of stills from surveillance cameras in a suburb of Moscow.
What stirred your interest in photography? Why did you start using photography and making your own books?
I like books and... photography. I consider photobooks like an artform in itself.
You have any background like studying photography or just did and do things on your own?
DIY, always.
What gave you the idea to make a book not using your own photographs, but ones from surveillance cameras in Russia? Are there any connections from your side to this place?
Pomoskovye uses the mechanics of surveillance to gain insight into the Moscow suburbs. The images were made with surveillance that are legally accessible on the Internet and are monitored and controlled by unknown users. The imagery takes advantage of these all-seeing devices and adopts a voyeuristic point of view.
One sees mostly young people in the pics. Them meeting in groups and pairs for me is central for how the book works. Was choosing those pics a deliberate choice by you or also a consequence of the material you found?
It was rather a consequence of the material that I found. People seems to hang out... like in every suburb on the planet.
I like a lot the kind of cinematic structure of certain parts of the book and the way you sequence the photos. Could you say something about that?
The idea was to show the Moscow suburbs, but also to adopt the voyeur's point of view. What are we looking at when we use CCTV? Do we only have these tools for security ?
Could you say something about the choice of the cover, not using a photograph?
For this book, I've choosen the flag of Moscow Oblast which I found visually appealing.
Would you mind talking a bit about the short piece of text by Foucault, laid in the book as a card? ("The seeing machine was once a sort of dark room into which individuals spied; it has become a transparent building in which the exercise of power may be supervised by society as a whole." Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 1975)
Michel Foucault reminds us that the growth of surveillance in modern societies undermines not only the privacy of citizens, but leads to a panoptic society where people are at once the watchers and the watched.
How about your way of distribution, giving away publications for free?
I give my books for free because it makes no sense for me to sell them. Our whole lives have been merchandised... and the internet has become an important tool for corporations to expand their business. So let's try to stay out of "Kommerz" !
Fakten:
Pascal Anders: „Podmoskovye“, 2015
self-published
ISBN 978-2-918837-13-8
140 Seiten, 84 Abbildungen, 20,5 cm x 12,5 cm, Broschur
1. Auflage mit 100 Exemplaren
Website des Fotografen mit Informationen zu seinen Publikationen